Thank you for all of your thoughtful questions in response to Gov. Haslam’s proposal to create evaluation flexibility during our transition to TNReady. Last month, we shared an overview of the governor’s proposal (here). Earlier this week, the legislation began moving through the legislative process, so I’m writing to share more detailed information regarding the proposal, specifically how it is designed to create evaluation flexibility for you.

The department has developed an FAQ document on Evaluation Flexibility for Teachers (here) which provides detailed information regarding how this flexibility will affect teachers in different subjects and grades. I encourage you to closely read this document to learn how the flexibility applies to your unique situation.

Meanwhile, I wanted to share a few highlights. The governor’s proposal would provide you the option to include or not include results from the 2015-16 TNReady and TCAP tests within the student growth component of your evaluation, depending on which scenario benefits you the most. In other words, if student growth scores from this year help you earn a higher evaluation score, they will be used. If they do not help you earn a higher score, they will not be used. The option that helps your score the most will automatically be incorporated into your evaluation. This applies to all grades and subjects, including science and social studies.

Because Tennessee teachers will meet over this spring and summer to establish scoring guidelines and cut scores for the new assessment, achievement scores will not be available until the fall. TVAAS scores, however, will be available this summer because cut scores for proficiency levels are not required to calculate growth scores.

You can follow the progress of the governor’s proposal as it moves through the legislative process at the Tennessee General Assembly website (here). If you have additional questions about how this may apply to you, please contact TEAM.Questions@tn.gov.

We hope this evaluation flexibility eases concerns as we transition to a new, more rigorous assessment that is fully aligned to our Tennessee Academic Standards, as well as navigate the challenge of moving to a paper-based test this year. Thank you for your ongoing commitment to Tennessee students, as well as your continued flexibility as we transition to an assessment that will provide us with better information about our students’ progress on the path to college and career readiness.

My thoughts:

While flexibility is good, and the TVAAS waiver is needed, this sentence is troubling:

TVAAS scores, however, will be available this summer because cut scores for proficiency levels are not required to calculate growth scores.

The plan is to allow teachers to include TNReady TVAAS scores if they improve the teacher’s overall 1-5 TEAM rating. That’s all well and good, except that there can be no valid TVAAS score generated from this year’s TNReady data. This fact seems to have escaped the data gurus at the Department of Education.

Here’s what I wrote after analyzing studies of value-added data and teacher performance when using different types of assessments:

If you measure different skills, you get different results. That decreases (or eliminates) the reliability of those results. TNReady is measuring different skills in a different format than TCAP. It’s BOTH a different type of test AND a test on different standards. Any value-added comparison between the two tests is statistically suspect, at best. In the first year, such a comparison is invalid and unreliable. As more years of data become available, it may be possible to make some correlation between past TCAP results and TNReady scores.

This year’s TNReady-based TVAAS scores will be invalid. So will next year’s, for that matter. There’s not enough comparative data to make a predictive inference regarding past TCAP performance as it relates to current TNReady performance. In other words, it’s like comparing apples to oranges. Or, pulling a number out of your ass.

IT’S WRONG!

But, there’s also the fact that in states with both paper-based and online testing, students score significantly higher on the paper tests. No one is talking about how this year’s mixed approach (some 20,000 students completed a portion of the test online on day one) will impact any supposed TVAAS number.

How about we simply don’t count test scores in teacher evaluations at all this year? Or for the next three years? We don’t even have a valid administration of TNReady – there have been errors, delays, and there still are graders hired from Craigslist.

Let’s take a step back and get it right – even if that means not counting TNReady at all this year — not for teachers, not for students, not for schools or districts. If this 11 hour test is really the best thing since sliced bread, let’s take the time to get it right. Or, here’s an idea, let’s stop TNReady for this year and allow students and teachers to go about the business of teaching and learning.

But Andy… What will all those high-priced pencil pushers in Nashville do for the next two or three years while the screw-the-teachers club figures out the next ploy to further undermine kids, teachers, and schools???